Some Commonage Farmers to Get Top-up on Sfp Payments

IFA Hill Committee Chairman Tom Fadian said that following representation by IFA to the Department of Agriculture, farmers whose commonage area was reduced following the remapping and digitisation of land in 2010, and where SFP was reduced, will now get a top-up SFP payment following a recalculation of their entitlements.

Mr. Fadian said that 15,000 farmers with commonages had their land area adjusted but around 2,000 had payment reduced as the number of hectares claimed was lower than the number of entitlement they had. While the payments in some cases may be small, nevertheless, for some the top-up payment is worth up to €2,000 which will restore their full entitlements.

The IFA Hill Chairman also said that it was now vital that the Department of Agriculture make the top-up payments immediately and indicate to commonage farmers the number of hectares eligible for SFP purposes in 2011 well in advance of the mid-May application date.